"I wonder what they are up to?" remarked Bob, thoughtfully. "They ought to have bottomed some days ago, judging by the level and trend of the drift in the Golden Promise."
But their scheme was simple enough, as it turned out. Jackson unconsciously explained it away that same night while he was talking to Bob by the camp-fire.
"Your neighbours have offered to sell me one of their claims for £1000," said he. "They haven't struck the wash yet, but they say, judgin' from your ore on the surface, theirs must be as good, if not better, when they hit it."
"Oh, that's their idea, is it?" commented Mackay, who had been listening. "I'm no' denyin' that it's a good plan in some cases for both sides, an' I believe they are perfectly honest accordin' to their calculations, but——"
He shook his head decisively.
"Why, what do you think is the matter?" asked Jackson. "Haven't they a good chance of striking the channel?"
Mackay laughed. "They'll hit the channel plumb enough," said he; then he hesitated. "You haven't been down our shaft yet?" he added. "But I'll take you below in the morning, and show ye something that'll surprise you. You're no' half a bad sort, Jackson, and you and me have worked together before, otherwise I wouldna say a single word aboot the concern, though I admit freely I have no goodwill towards the meeserable crowd next to us."
The tactics of the objectionable party were, after all, but the tactics of the non-mining element on all goldfields, who invariably prefer to sell a chance rather than take even remote risk of disaster. The true gold-miner is built differently; to him his chance is everything, the whole glamour of his life lies in its tantalizing uncertainty, and poor and needy though he may be, he must pursue Nature's elusive treasure to the end, be it bitter or sweet.
A fortnight had elapsed since the Shadow's return, and Golden Flat thrived and grew apace. The crashing rattle of the ever-active stamping-battery made day and night alike hideous. A saw-mill, too, had appeared on the scene, and its characteristic din was added to the prevailing discords. Deep wells had been sunk, tapping only strongly brackish water, but a condensing plant was almost immediately established to purify this sufficiently for culinary purposes, and the far-seeing proprietor was reaping a goodly harvest from the sale of the warm fluid, sparingly dispensed at a shilling a gallon.
From the Golden Promise mine, nearly two hundred tons of the valuable wash had been raised to the surface and this was being regularly conveyed to the greedy battery, which consumed it at the rate of twenty tons a day, and rendered the resultant bullion to the happy owners of the mine. But the partners of the Golden Promise knew well that their claim would yield little more of the same material; another fifty tons at the utmost was Mackay's computation, and then—then the deceptive under-stratum would have to be considered. Meanwhile, the news of the Golden Promise's richness spread like wildfire throughout the Flat; the battery returns on the first day of treatment gave the exceptionally high result of one hundred and twenty ounces of gold from the twenty tons of ore crushed.